In the 80's as instant win lotteries were being introduced, game play was initially based on simple play formats including Match 3 of 6 and other styles of previously known games such as Tic Tac Toe, etc. The outcome of play on all games was pre-determined. As the industry evolved lottery organizations and ticket manufacturers wanted to provide greater playability to their customers. Developments included extended play games, Bingo, Crossword, etc. which took several minutes to play. Other products featured multiple play areas with the chance to win multiple prizes on the same ticket or groupings of tickets within a single game piece, for example the Pollard Play Book. In each case the outcome was predetermined and there was only one way to play, with no opportunity to replay the game or apply any level of skill or experience.
There was also development efforts made to develop probability based games where players would make selections from available options as to how the ticket would be played. Depending on the selections made by the player the outcome would vary. These styles of tickets however had two major drawbacks, firstly the final outcome for the lottery could not be pre-determined and secondly because each ticket is a potential winner, the security requirements were higher. Some lotteries did offer these products for sale but this was very limited and this product was not maintained.
With the evolution of computer-based and web-based gaming cross-over products have been developed which begin with an instant win ticket and/or an entry code which is used to access electronic gaming.
As described following one product which has been offered is by Ingenio, the operation of which is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 7,008,317 (Cote) issued Mar. 7, 2006. The Ingenio system, while offering a game play on a computer still has a single play format and pre-determined outcome. According to this patent, for a particular play experience on the instant lottery ticket, there is pre-determined digital play/outcome associated with it. No matter how many times a player replays the digital game associated with the same code, the game face and hence the player experience is the same. That is there are no options in the game which are presented by the game to the player and can be freely selected by the player, since during game play the game played is merely entertainment and all selections within the game are made by the computer system
Others suppliers tried to overcome this problem by providing access to a computer game but simply in the form of a second chance draw which offers no play experience and the overall outcome for the lottery is pre-determined, although not at the player level.
It has remained a problem therefore in this industry to pre-determine the outcome of a skill-based game. A solution needs to be developed that rewards players who are more skilled at the game than the novice players while maintaining the requirement that the result of each game is predetermined so that the total result when all the games are played is predetermined thus setting the total lottery prize liability at a set sum.